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On the first day of Christmas we heralded a drone…buzz buzz buzz buzz…
On the second day of Christmas we talked reality…virtual, augmented and mixed…
On the third day of Christmas we tightened up on Slack…teams and workplace…
On the fourth day of Christmas we zeroed in on health…big data to insurance…
On the fifth day of Christmas we tackled IoT…Space! The Final Frontier!…
On the sixth day of Christmas we got our bots on…chat, scheduling and commerce…
On the seventh day of Christmas we swoon over iPhoneX…dawn or a sunset…
On the eighth day of Christmas we quake at autonomous vehicles…private, freight and drone…
Today, on the ninth day of Christmas we continue our deep disruptive dive with #4 in our Disruptive Christmas countdown. So, without further ado, in at #4 on the ninth day of Christmas…we hail the end of money…
This could well become perhaps the most significant disruption of the modern era, but we’re not quite there yet. Set your Star Trek uniforms to standby. We’ve ascended the foothills of Mt ‘Death o’Money’ but we’ve a long way to go before we summit. However, progress thus far warrants a significant mention in this series.
Now whilst we sadly struggled to get some British statistics on this subject, according to a recent survey, one in 10 Americans no longer carry cash on a daily basis. As Apple pay and other contactless transactions essentially make paper money ever more redundant, it would seem the clever folks over at Amazon are taking this one step further.
As of December of this year, Amazon opened its first ever cashless grocery store in downtown Seattle which allows customers to walk in, take what they want, and simply saunter back out again. Not only does this seamless process negate the need for queues, but it also finally puts to an end those dreaded self-check-outs that have roughly the same temperament as a three year old – prone to random bouts of intractability at any given moment.
In a service known as “Amazon Go,” consumers simply tap their mobiles on a turnstile as they walk in. This logs them into the store network and then connects them to their Amazon account through the use of an App. To track what you pick up it uses a rather impressive blend of machine learning, sensors, and just a dash of artificial intelligence, to make sure every item is accounted for.
The shop is currently being run on a trial basis for Amazon employees only, however, it is expected to open to the public as early as February 2017. And Amazon want 2000 such stores.
Almost every analyst worth their salt is predicting that this store will disrupt the food and beverage market in a big way. TepFu will go further and say this will disrupt the High Street and Bricks & Mortar retail in general well beyond food and beverages.
Already, Amazon’s shares are rising and are up almost 13% since a year ago. It seems entirely plausible that debit cards could soon go the same way as chequebooks – a rather exciting prospect.
As if that wasn’t excitement enough on the topic of a moneyless society, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, is spearheading a strategic push to cashless transactions that immediately turns India into a world leader in this matter. The world is watching.
What would a cashless society mean for your business? How would physical spaces in and around your business change without checkouts?
If you would like to discuss the above or how a cashless society could impact on your business and your customers and how your business can leverage the looming death of money, or if you have any brand, marketing, social media, content marketing, email marketing etc related questions in general, feel free to drop us a line at [email protected]
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